


Joint Effort

by keelywolfe



Series: by any other name [77]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Underfell (Undertale), Alternate Universe - Underswap (Undertale), Established Relationship, Humor, M/M, Marijuana, Spicyhoney - Freeform, Underfell Papyrus (Undertale), Underfell Sans (Undertale), Underswap Papyrus (Undertale), Underswap Sans (Undertale), Undertale Monsters on the Surface, kustard - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 10:47:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20152354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keelywolfe/pseuds/keelywolfe
Summary: Jeff is getting back on his feet and that’s pretty nice. He’s not so sure about Red and Sans’s version of helping, though.





	Joint Effort

**Author's Note:**

> I’m getting my timeline a little scattered, but man did I need something funny and cute.

* * *

Staying in New New Home was nice. 

Honestly, one of the nicest places Jeff ever lived and there was something about knowing that if he went outside for a walk at least one person was bound to wave at him, and if it was a skeleton or a Bun or even a Moldsmal, it was, well. It was nice.

Not that Jeff was walking that much, he was only just back on his feet. Blue spent a decent amount of time this morning scolding him not to overdo it, doublechecked that he had his phone and that he’d call if he needed to, and gave him a sack lunch before shooing him out the door.

Maybe it was a little overkill for a walk over to Stretch’s house, but the kindness of it made a warm glow settle in Jeff’s middle and that was a nice change from the itch of his healing stitches. It reminded him a bit of how it felt for Stretch to pull his soul out, but that memory was blurred through pain medicine. Maybe someday he could persuade Stretch to do it again, just to compare his memory to reality. But not today.

Today they were hanging out to celebrate Jeff’s return to being upright. Stretch seemed all for the bag lunch anyway, promptly stealing it and now they were sitting in the backyard together sharing the chocolate chip cookies while the nice, healthy sandwich on wheat sat wilting in the heat, sad and ignored.

The chickens wandered around the yard, occasionally inspecting their feet for possible goodies. This was nice, too, sitting in comfortable silence with a friend, sharing snacks and company.

“hey, you two.”

Swallowing back a yelp, Jeff whipped around to see Sans and Red standing behind them, lounging back against the large tree. He didn’t really know either of them well, Sans a bit better of the two since he’d helped out with the lab work that one time. But the matching grins on their faces filled him with a sense of foreboding.

Stretch seemed to agree. He slouched even more in his chair, rolling his eye lights as he reached out lazily to snuff his cigarette out in the nearby ashtray. “hey, you two back. what do you want?”

“aww, that ain’t nice, honey bun,” Red shook his head sadly. “maybe we just came to visit you and your little feathery dinosaurs for andy’s first real outing.”

“maybe. except every time you come over you have an agenda, short stack, and it better not be trying to sneak in more of your spy shit.”

“i’m here, too,” Sans pointed out. “what’s the agenda, do i need to take notes? got a pen i can borrow?”

“like you’d do anything he says? i know you, you have your own shit planned. better not let him be rubbing off on you and you can skip all the puns around that, i’ve already thought of all the good ones and the statute of limitations isn’t up.”

“rubbing ‘em out as we speak,” Sans said solemnly. “now, if you’re through your daily quota of paranoia, we brought you both a gift.”

“you can’t have any cookies.”

“we ain’t after the fucking cookies. besides the blueberry would hand some over himself if we asked and you know it.” Red nudged Sans ungently and got a sharp elbow to the ribs for his trouble. “show ‘em.”

With theatrical flare, Sans reached into his hoodie pocket and withdrew what to Jeff’s inexperienced eye looked like a joint. “ta fucking da.”

From Stretch’s brutally unimpressed expression, he probably wasn’t very excited. “seriously?”

“c’mon, please?” Sans wheedled, hands clasped together in a pantomime of pleading. “we haven’t smoked since you hooked your anchor to the edgelord.”

“yeah, because the last time my brother was ready to commit a couple murders over what we did to his sofa.”

“he got a new one! besides, can’t burn any of the good furniture if we stay out here. it’ll be fun! andy, talk to him.”

Jeff froze, looking between the twin earnestly pleading expressions (it was oddly disturbing on Red’s face) and Stretch’s skeptical one. “Um. I don’t mind if you guys want to?”

“don’t go into infomercials, kid, you ain’t so good at the ringing endorsements,” Red said dryly. “c’mon, i doubledchecked, it won’t interact bad with your meds.”

“ixnay,” Sans hissed. Stretch only sighed.

“of course you did, you shit. you know, i need to stop bitching about my brother being controlling because you’re valedictorian with an advanced degree in meddling.”

“yeah, yeah, me and those kids with the dog,” Red waved that away. ”c’mon, we could all use some chill. either smoke with us, or sansy and i’ll go back to my place and do it there.”

“give me that,” Stretch said irritably, reaching for the roll. Sans let him pluck it away. He flicked his lighter and held it to the end until it kindled, inhaling deeply. Breathed out a cloud of smoke with a faint cough, “at least if you’re here i can keep an eye on you.”

“oh, yeah, you’re great as adult supervision. i feel safer already.” Sans took it back when Stretch held it out, taking a hit of his own. He held it out to Jeff, “give this a try, andy.”

“Um, that’s okay?” Jeff said meekly. “I tried it in college, it doesn’t do much for me. I don’t want to waste it.”

“can’t hurt to take a hit then,” Red said reasonably. “give it a try. what could wrong?”

* * *

“He is hot as hell, though, right?” Jeff slurred out, blinking up dazedly at the bright blue of the sky.

The path of his descent to laying on the grass was only a little convoluted. Starting with his feet being suddenly too hot, so he kicked off his shoes and the grass felt so good on his bare feet he decided that laying on it would feel even better. It did, all cool, faintly prickly glory and that mingled with sweet relaxation lapping over him was a hell of a lot better than simply nice.

He was pretty sure one of the chickens was trying to preen his hair. He damn well hoped it was a chicken.

“the edgelord?” Came from next to him where Sans had joined in on his magnificent quest to the grass. Red and Stretch were occupying their own section of the lawn, solidifying it as a common goal. Sans didn’t wait for Jeff to reply, only added with lazy fervor, “fuck, yeah, he is.”

Okay, so, all of them ending up on the grass was a path Jeff could chart. This topic of conversation, not so much. 

After passing the joint a couple times, —and Jeff was pretty sure he hadn’t meant to take more than one hit— the rest of the cookies had fallen quickly to their ravenous appetite. So had the sandwich and the little baggie of chisps, and somewhere in there Stretch was lamenting that Edge wasn’t home to bring them more snacks. Sans made some comment about Edge _being_ a snack, and then—

Jeff wasn’t entirely sure what qualified as attractive to Monsters, but from his own observations of others around them, he was pretty sure when they were handing out the sexy, Edge went back for a second helping. Didn’t hurt to ask though, right?

From somewhere around his bare feet, Jeff felt the grass stir, then a bony finger poked the sole of his foot hard enough to make him yelp. “are you two discussing how hot my husband is without me?”

“nah, you’re sitting right there.”

“i didn’t think so,” Stretch sniffed. “yeah, he’s really hot, isn’t he. fuck, when he wears those jeans—“

“yeah, and those boots of his—“

“And that belt? Kind of, you know, draws the eyes down, yeah?”

The sound that came from Jeff’s left made him frown, trying to turn his wobbly head that way to see how a wounded animal managed to get into Stretch’s backyard. But the only thing there was Red and rather than enjoying the feel of the grass, he looked like he might be attempting to bite out a chunk of the ground. 

“can we please not talk about how hot my baby bro is?” Red said, and wow. Jeff never took him for the begging type. “let’s talk about how hot someone else’s honey is. you!”

Jeff froze when Red pointed at him accusingly.

“Me? Oh! Oh, yeah, Antwan is hot,” Jeff agreed eagerly, sighing happily as his mental picture of Edge was overlaid with Antwan. Both of them obviously took far more than their fair share of sexy on their buffet plates, letting it spill over onto everything else like salad dressing seeping into the mac and cheese. Hmmm, maybe he could keep them on his thought player side by side, Edge and Antwan—

His introspection was interrupted by a loud scoff from Red. “we know he’s hot, we can see. how is he in the sack, now, that’s a real question.”

“Um.” There were many answers to that question in varying stages of pornographic, each battling with his dwindling common sense to be said first.

“you can’t ask him that!” Stretch scolded and gave Red a rough shove with his own bony bare foot. Jeff’s swelling relief at being rescued was immediately punctured as he went on. “i’m his best friend, i get to ask. how is he in the sack?”

“Uhmm…he’s…good?” Jeff tried but as answers went, no one seemed very satisfied with it. ”Really good?”

“that’s how you describe a mediocre summer action flick, not getting laid,” Red complained. 

“don’t pick on him!” Stretch said, loyal even in his disappointment. “don’t feel bad, andy, edge is good in the sack, too.”

“doesn’t anyone want to know how good my boyfriend is in the sack?” Sans asked.

“no!”

“you ain’t even got a boyfriend, you shit.”

“Yeah, okay. Is he hot?”

Before Sans could answer, a pair of boots came up beside Jeff’s head. He stared in awe at the glory of them. They were nice boots, familiar boots, and Jeff reached out to rub a thumb over the dark, shiny leather. To his disappointment, they moved out of his reach and Jeff sighed sadly, absently looking up the long, long legs, up, up…oh.

Edge was looking down at them, arms crossed over his chest and that look should be patented under Severely Disappointed. 

“What are you idiots doing?” It was a question, but Jeff had his suspicions that Edge already knew.

“babe!” Stretch said gleefully and made an attempt to sit up. It failed somewhere around the point of pushing up on his elbows and he sank back to the grass. “you’re home! we’re just…uh…” That laser of disapproval looked like it cut through the cloud of his high and dawning realization washed over Stretch’s face. He made a hasty attempt to change tactics. “hey. uh. love you?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

“which one will make you less mad?”

“Neither, brat.” But he moved to kneel next to him, a gloved hand gently smoothing over Stretch’s skull. He made a happy little sound, not unlike the chickens, and leaned into that touch. “I’m not angry. You seem relaxed.”

“yeah,” Stretch sighed. The way he tipped his head into Edge’s petting made Jeff unsuccessfully stifle a giggle. “and we kept it outside!”

“Smoking anything in my house is unwise,” Edge agreed.

Sans leaned up with marginally more success than Stretch, holding up the joint. “you want a hit?”

“No, thank you,” Edge said dryly. “Try not to light anything on fire this time. Do you all want a snack?”

From his wince, they were maybe a little too enthusiastic with their response. But Edge only nodded, his thumb skirting over the curve of Stretch‘s skull a last time before he climbed back to his feet, and Jeff watched in bemusement as both Stretch and Sans lifted their heads to watch Edge walk away.

Or at least Sans tried. For some reason his head dropped back to the grass with a muttered, “ouch! stop it asshole, i ain’t lookin’!”

The door closed and Jeff whispered as softly as he could to Stretch. “I thought he’d be mad.”

Apparently, his whispers were currently set to high. Stretch only flapped a hand vaguely at the house. “nah, he’s cool. also, he can hear you, he opened the kitchen window. gotta be a mamma bear.”

Sans’s voice managed to be somehow vague and still rich with his own brand of disappointment. “aww, so we have to stop talking about how hot he is?”

The loud sound of dishes crashing made a round of wincing go through them all.

Stretch waited for the last of the clatter to fade. “only if you want something to eat.”

“i’ll think about it…ouch! okay, okay, i’m done!”

Jeff shook his head when Sans held out the joint to him again. Whatever snack Edge was making, he wanted some, too, and if the price was ending any chatter about how hot Edge was, eh. 

Better to not take the chance.

-finis-


End file.
